A Healthy Body, so that You Can Consume More and Destroy More?

Acharya Prashant: Arjun has been taught that respecting elders is a virtue. Arjun has been taught that non-violence is a virtue. Arjun, has also been taught that defending your territory is a virtue. Now, these two things clash with each other. If he must defend his territory, then he must fight his elders. But he has been taught that not fighting with your elders is a virtue. Arjun, has been taught that one must take care of the interests of one’s kins and clan. But Arjun has also been taught that one must take good care of one’s wife. Now, these two are ranged against each other. The kins have insulted the wife, now Arjun must defend and avenge the wife. This is how the mind gets divided.

Society influences it, media influences it, religion influences it, the entire gamut of experiences of the past, influences the mind. The biology inherent in one’s cells and tissues influences the mind. The country you come from, the system you have experienced, in terms of politics, economy, even ecology. That is what constitutes the Mind. The Mind is the bundle of influences. And these influences do not agree with each other, they fight with each other. Hence, the contradiction, hence, the strife that makes our life a battlefield. That is human suffering. That is grief.

One part of oneself is fighting with another part. And none of the parts is prepared to be related directly to the center. All parts are off-center and in disagreement with each other. Yoga is to have a composite mind. Yoga is to return to one’s innocence. One’s primal Purity, in which the mind is not conditioned, or stained at all. That is Yoga.

Still you see, we have not talked about anything that is as gross as physical objects or physical body. Neither have we talked of anything that is hypothetically extremely subtle. As subtle, as divinity or Godhood or enlightenment. Yoga does not pertain to either of these. I repeat, Yoga is not about having a fit body. If it was having a fit body, Arjun, was the fittest of them all already. Why does he need lectures on Yoga then?

The fittest warrior is being given sermons on Yoga, surely Yoga is not about physical fitness. If physical fitness would mean Yoga, then Arjun was already established in Yoga. So, Yoga is not at all a physical thing. And Yoga is also not about enlightenment, or other worldliness or freedom from this world, or transcendental experiences, or divine sparkle, none of that.

Yoga means, ‘How do I live?’ Yoga means, ‘What do I do with my relatives?’ Yoga means, ‘How do I treat my wife?’ Yoga means, ‘If I need to invest everything in a conflict, would I risk my son’s life?’ These are the questions that an Arjun faces. If these questions are relevant to you, then the answers to these questions are called Yoga. Yoga means coming together.

What can come together? Only that can come together, that is first of all, not together. What is not together? The mind is that, which is not together. The mind runs, hither -thither, randomly, sometimes this way and sometimes that way. There is no inherent order.

That lack of order is called Viyoga. That fragmentation is called Viyoga.

Viyoga, is unfortunately the usual state in which mankind exists. Viyoga means that the parts of mind are not in touch with each other, and also not related to any common center. There are thousands of centers, every part has its own center. The part that relates to career, has greed and ambition and fear as the center. The part that relates to religion has tradition and difference as the center. The part that relates to family has attachment and security as the center. And all these centers are not at all, obviously coinciding. So, there is conflict.

The professional in the office is not the same, as the husband or the wife, in the home. The father in front of the kid is not the same as the man, who is talking to the neighbor. As situations change, new influences come and we start operating from a different center. Sometimes we operate from fear, sometimes we operate from attachment, sometimes we operate from one identity, sometimes from another identity. And the identities are not something that we control. The identities are dictated by the situations. Once you are in your office, you have become a dedicated professional. Out of the office, you have become somebody else. That somebody else does not quite like the professional, hence conflict.

You cannot wear the same face, you cannot operate from the same center that is Viyoga. To be living in Viyoga, is living in slavery of a thousand different forces. You are in place one, you are a slave to place one. You are in place two, you are a slave to place two. Because the place is dictating your entire personality. The place is dictating the way you would think, the place is dictating, even your core. Your very self changes, according to the situation. That is Viyoga.

Yoga is to have a self that is independent of place and time. Yoga is to be firmly rooted at a point that is untouched by anything that can touch anything. Arjun, is constantly told, to be Yogaaroodha, it means firmly seated in Yoga. ‘Firmly seated’, so that you cannot be displaced. So that, no vibration, no force, no temptation, no fear, can really disturb you or dislocate you.

Are we getting it?

Finding practical solutions, finding real solutions to the real situations of life, is Yoga.

Yoga is just not about escaping into a fancy land. Yoga in fact, brings you closer to the soil. The Man of Yoga, is a REAL MAN.

show_less